


there's a certain man you know

by pawn_vs_player



Series: Adrian's Exam Week Extravaganza [10]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Canonical Character Death, Ego is His Own Warning, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Inhumanity, Monster Baby, POV Multiple, POV Outsider, Peter Quill Has Issues, Pregnancy, Terminal Illnesses, are marsupials? ain't that neat?, feat. my headcanons about groot's species, hey did y'all know that centaurians (yondu's species), references to comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22263265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pawn_vs_player/pseuds/pawn_vs_player
Summary: There's something strange about Peter Quill.
Relationships: Ego the Living Planet/Meredith Quill, Meredith Quill & Peter Quill, Peter Quill & Guardians of the Galaxy Team, Peter Quill & Yondu Udonta
Series: Adrian's Exam Week Extravaganza [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1248746
Comments: 16
Kudos: 170





	there's a certain man you know

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Plastic Soul" from This World Fair.  
> welcome to the Exam Week Update Extravaganza, 2020 edition!! i wanted to get this out yesterday but. nope. sorry :( i'm spending this weekend w/ family so tbh the rest of the updates might be... next week... sorry >_<  
> hope y'all enjoy this!! <3

Meredith Quill is five months pregnant when she turns eighteen. She makes her own cake in her parents' kitchen, her mother stirring up homemade frosting for it at her side. Her horde of cousins sing _Happy Birthday_ and she lets the youngest, not quite three years old, sit on her knee and blow out the candles. Her father shows her the cradle he made and rubs her back as she cries. (She cries at everything these days. At least she's not throwing up at the drop of a hat anymore.)

Later, when the cousins have gone home and she is alone in her room, she sits on the bed and strokes gentle circles over her belly. Her baby's been kicking more often in the past couple weeks, especially when she sings. She hums under her breath, strains of _Brandy_ and _Mr Blue Sky_ as her baby wiggles and strikes out. The skin of her stomach is still fairly smooth, but there are stretch marks dug into her sides and veins almost visible in the right lighting. 

"Angel," she whispers, tapping back a reply to her baby's movement. "Angel, he's going to be beautiful."

A hand ghosts over hers, the faintest warmth settling on her belly. She can almost feel the press of a kiss against her hairline. _He already is_.

Another hand drifts over her eyes, turning the world just blurry enough to make her blink hard in discomfort. The warmth on her stomach begins to spread. Her skin, already pale and stretched thin, seems more like paper held up to a light. The silhouette of her son becomes visible under the phantom touch of her angel's hand, his veins glowing and his eyes bright under thin lids. He doesn't look quite human yet, his toes and fingers more like a frog's webbed feet, his eyes disproportionately large, his heart a dim little blot in his chest. For a moment she feels sick with horror. 

She feels another feather-light kiss on her hair, the barely-there pressure of a hand rubbing her belly. The cold, frightened nausea subsides. _Look at our little Star-Lord._

She pushes one finger gently down near her son's foot. He kicks, the lacework of light making up his veins shimmering in his leg. 

He is beautiful, even more so than his father. Her little Star-Lord. She loves him so much she thinks she could die from it.

-

The tumor in her head turns the world strange and unfamiliar. Sounds are colored streaks and splotches hanging in the air. She can't feel her angel anymore, but she can see the places he's touched her -- her body is covered in faintly-glowing fingermarks. Faces slip from her memory. She knows her family and the doctor she used to see, but she recognizes the new doctors and nurses only by the colors of their voices.

When Peter was a baby, her angel would help her see his light. The latticework of veins would shine out under Peter's skin, casting a soft, shivering heat into her as she held him. She and her angel would sing together and Peter would smile so wide it frightened her the first time she saw it -- it seemed his cheeks would split with how big his grin was. But her angel had stroked her hair and crooned _What a good wife you would be_ into her ear, and so she smiled and rocked her baby and was content.

With the tumor, she doesn't need her angel's hand over her eyes. Nowadays, she sees the light in Peter before she sees the rest of him. He's such a good boy. She's sure his father will come for him after she's gone, tell Peter how special he is and teach him how to be the great man Meredith has always known her son will become. Their little Star-Lord, brilliant as a star himself. She loves him so much.

He's standing at her bedside. How long has he been there? Time keeps slipping through her fingers. She feels so cold. "Take my hand," she says. He's so warm, always, the energy of the cosmos coursing through him. Her beautiful boy. Why is he still so far away? "Take my hand, Peter." She can't feel her angel anymore but she can feel Peter if he would just reach back. She loves him. She loves him so much. Does he know that? Does he know how much he means to her? Her baby. "Peter..." He's shining. He shines so brightly it makes her eyes water, blurring him into a haze of light. Her Star-Lord.

Why is the room so cold? Why can't she see anything but the luminous silhouette of her son?

Why is he backing away?

-

Yondu Udonta has shipped kids before, dozens of them. They don't look much alike, seeing as Ego doesn't exactly have _genetics_ to pass down. Most of them have a half-starved look in their eyes, the look of kids who have grown up missing something vital. Most of them huddle up into themselves in the storage bay, reluctant to talk. Most of them are nothing special. All of them are kids, half-formed masses of personality waiting to be shaped. Yondu does his best to forget them as soon as they leave his ship. He's met plenty of kids, plenty of Ego's kids; they're all small and afraid and frightening in their incompleteness.

He's never met any kid like Peter Quill. 

The kid _fights_ , which isn't that unusual, but the way Yondu's men flinch back from the kid is new. When Yondu asks them later, not a one of them can explain themselves. _Something about his eyes,_ says one. _He felt... wrong,_ says another. 

Kraglin, the closest to human as species on the ship go, is the only one who can look Peter in the eyes. "There's something weird about him, Cap'n," Kraglin reports, "but I can't give you anything solid." His arm is bandaged from the bite Peter had given him. The kid _fights_ like Yondu used to, like the kids Yondu grew up with used to: all tooth and claw desperation, unafraid to take a few hits so long as the threat went down. 

When Yondu goes to see the kid himself, Peter's sitting on the floor with his weird yellow box in his hands. He's staring at the doorway before Yondu walks into his view. There's still blood crusted around the kid's chin.

Once upon a bygone era, Centaurians were prey. They've evolved past that -- _Yondu_ has evolved past that -- but even without the natural connection he'd get from being on solid ground, he knows danger when he sees it. He knows a predator when he sees it.

Peter Quill is a predator.

-

Yondu doesn't deliver Peter to Ego.

He's not afraid Ego will kill Peter, oh no. Ego, Yondu knows by now, kills the children who disappoint him, the children without the light. Peter has the light, Yondu's certain of it. The only person other than Ego that makes his half-buried instincts go haywire with panic is Peter.

Yondu doesn't keep Peter to save the kid's life. He keeps Peter to save every other life in the universe.

(He keeps Peter because the kid deserves so much more than Ego. He deserves more than Yondu can give him, too, but Yondu has never been much good at letting go.)

-

Rocket has spent his whole life not backing down from bigger, badder creatures. He's small and he looks like prey, but that's an advantage in his line of work. It's easier to bag a target when they're watching for some big musclebound thug and not three feet one inch of badass. The dumb animal that couldn't be programmed out of him is always afraid, always on edge. Everything is a threat to that furry little coward. Rocket knows everything is a threat, but he's just as dangerous if not more so. He doesn't let his fear control him.

At first, he attributes the cold fear crawling along the steel of his spine to Gamora. She's a child of Thanos, a whole separate category of dangerous, so it makes sense that she'd trigger all his internal "danger! danger!" alarms. But the fear doesn't subside in the Kyln; locked in the cell, it only intensifies. He tells himself it's the presence of the half-dozen other murderous criminals around him. Groot doesn't say anything when Rocket clambers up and settles on his shoulder, as far away from everyone else as he can be. 

They escape the Kyln and the Collector. He hangs out on Groot as much as he can. In the little metal box of the _Milano_ , the icy pinpricks turn to cold, creeping dread. There's a constant feeling of being watched, being _stalked_ , like some great beast is deciding whether he's worth the effort to chase down. Rocket hates being afraid; he snaps and snarks instead, makes everyone except Groot scowl at him. They might not like him but they'll damn well take him seriously.

(He won't realize until much later that he never quite meets Peter Quill's eyes until after Ronan is dead.)

-

Drifting in the cold, crushing vacuum of space, Gamora thinks of Nebula. So much of her sister is metal and wires already; she doesn't have to breathe, has little flesh left on the steel and titanium that replaced her bones. Nebula would be fine.

Nebula would laugh to see Gamora now. All the fights she lost have made Nebula a better survivor than Gamora. 

She can feel the frost forming in the indentations of her face markings. Her lungs burn and strain. Her fingers are already going numb. Her eyes ache and sting but she can't quite make them close.

Quill's hands are burning hot where they touch her. She could almost grieve the loss of his warmth when he activates the helmet if she wasn't so busy gasping. Ice forms along his cheekbones, crusts his lips shut, makes his eyelashes shimmer. Perhaps it's the glitter of tears in her dry eyes or the light playing in the frost on his face, but Gamora could swear she sees a pale glow beneath Quill's skin, his eyes bright and blank under the thin skin of his eyelids.

-

Ronan the Accuser is unaccustomed to being afraid. He is the fist of the Kree, meant to destroy his enemies and bring glory to the Empire. War heroes are not meant to be afraid of those they will defeat.

He is not afraid when dealing with the Other; the creature is weak and sniveling, unworthy of his attention much less his fear. He is not afraid when speaking to the Titan; Thanos is not a simple man but he has simple desires and is easy enough to treat with. He is not afraid when the _Dark Aster_ crashes; his plan always required him to be on the surface of the planet.

He is not afraid of Star-Lord. The man is covered in dust and blood, patches of skin breaking off as the power of the Infinity Stone burns him from the inside out. He has been an annoyance -- a perseverant annoyance, but not a threat. Within minutes he will be dead, the Stone will touch the ground, and Xandar will fall to ruin. Ronan would have preferred to strike the destruction into the soil himself, but perhaps it is more fitting that the failure of those who oppose him is what brings him victory.

Except Star-Lord does not die. Nebula's sister and the other pests form a chain with him, purple lightning flickering through all their bodies, and they do not die. Star-Lord closes his fist and looks Ronan in the eye, and Ronan -- 

Ronan is afraid.

"How?" he demands. Star-Lord is _Terran_. His planet hasn't even been able to send mechanical scouts beyond their own solar system. How can he of all creatures withstand an Infinity Stone, even with the support of others?

Star-Lord's eyes are an incandescent violet. Through the swirl of dust and energy surrounding Star-Lord and his friends, Ronan can see an intricate pattern of glowing lines underneath Star-Lord's skin. 

"You said it yourself, bitch." Star-Lord bares his teeth. Light spills from his mouth. "We're the Guardians of the Galaxy."

The last thing Ronan sees is violet.

-

Irani Rael watches four intergalactic criminals use an Infinity Stone with her hands over her mouth.

Dozens of her forces are dead. The Kree as a whole have disowned Ronan, but she knows damn well that if he actually manages to kill her, the Empire will welcome him back. He's made a deal with Thanos. He has an Infinity Stone.

And four jackasses, each with criminal records as long as she is tall, take that Stone and obliterate him. And other than patches of missing skin and a haunted look in their eyes, each of them come out of _handling an Infinity Stone_ none the worse for wear. Peter Quill had the thing in his bare hand, was the only one of them without any enhancements, and he was fine.

Even if he hadn't agreed, she would have scanned him. What they've done is unheard of. She needs to know how the hell they managed it.

The results are inconclusive, which is not comforting. She tells Quill in the hopes that he'll give her some clue, but he doesn't. He's as oblivious as Nova is.

Irani lets them go with their scrubbed records and repaired ship. They've survived holding the Power Stone. What else can she do?

-

Flora colossus do not see as most other species understand it. They do a great many things differently from most other species. They do not need many words; the tone and cadence is enough to the discerning ear. Rocket understands this. Rocket's species also does not use many words, though Rocket himself does. Rocket is proud of his words. Rocket is many things but he wears his smugness and pride like a shield. When Groot looks at Rocket, he sees the fur and the skin, yes. He also sees the cybernetics underneath, and the molten ball of rage and shame and insecurity at the core of it all. He sees what makes Rocket himself.

Drax uses many words, but he does not understand certain usages of words. Groot likes looking at Drax; his insides match his outsides. Drax is large and gray; his red tattoos and his bulk make him stand out where he would otherwise blend easily into a crowd. His frame bears a great deal of blood-hot fury and the choking smog of sadness. When Drax is thinking very hard about his loss, Groot can almost see the shapes of the family that lives on in Drax's memory. Flora colossus do not grieve as most other species do -- they have no need to -- but Groot tries to comfort Drax when he grieves. It swallows up everything else that makes Drax himself.

Gamora does not talk unless she has something to say. It is different from Rocket, who hates silence. Gamora, Groot knows, is beautiful. She is green and silver, crimson dying the ends of her hair. She is kind to him even though she has taught herself not to be. She is fury, like Drax, but less so. She is more silver than gray, more green than red. She is steel-trap determination and hope growing from the bitter ashes of fear. Groot can see the little girl at the core of her, the child she never had the chance to grow away from. She hopes and loves as a child does, cleanly, endlessly. She is beautiful for it.

Groot looks at Peter and sees the battered clothes, the bluster and braggadocio, the half-grown boy desperate to mean something. It is Groot's knowledge of people and how they grow that lets him know what lies underneath Peter's skin. 

Groot cannot see Peter, not as Flora colossus understand it. When he looks at Peter, really looks, all he sees is brilliant, violet-edged light.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm already writing a companion to this; it's Meredith's POV, pre-canon, about raising this version of Peter. if y'all like this, though, i might write a second chapter set during/post vol 2.


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